Ted 2: he’s a funny animal again

Until three years ago, the phrase “Ted talks” referred to videos of smart people saying smart stuff at the Technology, Design and Entertainment events. Then came Ted, a film about a talking teddy bear of the same name, which on paper seemed like writer-director Seth MacFarlane doing rude animal jokes that he couldn’t get into his TV shows Family Guy and American Dad.

However Ted turned out to be hilarious and heartfelt, the funniest talking animal film of all time. It was also a global success, one of an increasingly rare number of movies that makes more than 10 times its budget at the global box office ($50 million against $549 million). Ted worked so well because of three things: the foul-mouthed talking teddy, a ton of other good jokes and Mark Wahlberg as Ted’s best friend, John. The latter demonstrated he had a funny bone alongside Will Ferrell in The Other Guys in 2010, but with Ted he showed he had an entire skeleton of funny: comic timing, physical chops and wise-ass talk. He and Ted also had a genuine rapport, the sort of bromance that bros could empathise with and that women didn’t find annoying.

In the sequel, Ted is marrying his supermarket checkout girlfriend Tami-Lynn. When they want to start a family (cue sperm donor jokes), Ted has to prove in court that he’s human.

Ted and John hire a lawyer, who luckily for the now-single John, is played by Amanda Seyfried.

MacFarlane will be hoping for a better response, critically and commercially, than to his previous film, A Million Ways To Die In The West, which was chucklesome, but not hilarious, and just a little bit too try-hard. With Ted 2, he is all but guaranteed to get it. Ted 2 is released worldwide from June 26.

Also worth checking out in June

April’s first trailer for True Detective 2 was full of good stuff: Colin Farrell with a shoelace tie and knuckledusters; Vince Vaughn not trying to be funny. Little else is known, but that’s the way it should be. The first season hit so hard because it defied expectations. So now we know we’re getting a dark, twisty mini-epic (nice not to always have 13 hours of telly to commit to), a lack of spoilers plus a new cast and scenario (cops Farrell and Rachel McAdams investigating Vaughn, with Taylor Kitsch lurking) is very welcome. First episode drops June 21.

The current slogan for EA Sports’ PGA Tour game is ‘golf without limits’. This is not true: the game-makers had their fill of Tiger Woods as frontman, and switched him for Rory McIlroy. Other new features include a fresh commentary team and The Night Club, a less realistic, more video-gamey set of golf challenges. With Jordan Spieth’s stunning Masters win still fresh in the mind, it’s disappointing not to be able to play the Augusta course, because of licensing issues. But everything else is in place that makes PGA Tour not just a great golf game, but perhaps the best sports game of any kind. Out in June for Xbox One and PS4.